Matt Lahood appointed CEO of The Agency

Highly experienced and regarded industry leader Matt Lahood has been appointed by Ausnet Financial Services (ASX: AU1) to the role of chief executive officer of The Agency, Ausnet's wholly-owned disruptive real estate agency model.

Mr Lahood is a sales executive based in Sydney with more than 28 years' industry experience in real estate sales and more than 2,000 property sales to his name worth over $2 billion.

Most recently, Mr Lahood held the position of director of sales for McGrath Real Estate where he was responsible for market entry strategies and management of 22 company owned offices and more than 250 people.

Commenting on his appointment, Mr Lahood said, "I am very excited with my new role at The Agency as I am attracted to the way the disruptive real estate agency model works. It is a highly profitable business model which is unlike anything else in Australia's real estate industry at present."

Mr Lahood said the calibre of people The Agency had already attracted opened the door for other high-performing agents to join the business.

"The Agency is developing a culture where an agent can test how good they are," he said.

"We are going to push them, we are going to coach them and we are going to connect them with the best people in the business and for that they are going to be remunerated the best in the industry.

"We want our agents to be at their absolute best when they come in so that their client will get the absolute best result every single time."

Ausnet managing director, Paul Niardone, added, "Mr Lahood brings a wealth of experience to this role and is widely recognised for his leadership and expertise in the real estate industry.

"The Agency is at a pivotal point in its short history and I am highly confident in Mr Lahood's ability to pursue the strong ambitions we have for the business as we continue to expand

nationally."

Since launching on the east coast on January 30, 2017, The Agency has expanded significantly with total sales to date on east coast of $80 million.

Sales to end of February 2017 nationally are 311 properties valued at $260.6 million ($5.2 million in commissions).

Ausnet consists of a group of successful businesses which deliver finance broking, real estate services, settlement services, property management (2017), project marketing, insurance and financial planning initially to the Western Australian market with an aim to be rolled out nationally.

According to the company this model has been created to build the core asset being a loan book currently at $1.1 billion by cross referring clients between business units. The largest growing referral area has been built on a highly successful and disruptive real estate agency model named The Agency. The agents have been referring 60% of all sales for financing broking.

Ausnet is aiming to recruit 100 sales representatives to The Agency in Western Australia that will eventually deliver over 1,000 property transactions per year with the aim of converting into cross sales for mortgages, settlements and insurance. Each sales representative that joins Ausnet not only add sales activities but also on average bring in a database of 2,000 clients. Ausnet's target is to have 600 sales representatives nationally.

The company is also backed by Finsure Group, one of Australia's fastest growing retail finance brokerages writing over $1 billion in new mortgages every month across 850 brokers.